Part 12

"If I'm not mistaken, that's a dare."

"It's as you care to take it."

He accepted with a smile the smiling gage of her eyes. They understood each other perfectly.

When it was time to return to the Alexandria, Summerlad insisted on driving them home himself; and as they drew near to Hollywood swung the car sharply off the highroad, and took a by-way leading into the foothills. In a few minutes more they had left behind every hint of civilization, other than the well-metalled way they travelled, and were climbing a road that wound snakily up precipitous mountainsides, threaded unholy gulches, or struck boldly across spine-like ridges from which the ground, clothed in chaparral, fell dizzily away on either hand into black gulfs of silence. The air grew colder, Lucinda and the Lontaines grateful for the wraps which Summerlad had pressed upon them. In the course of half an hour the car halted on an isolate peak, and all the lowlands lay unfolded to their vision, from the foothills to the sea, a land like a violet pool with a myriad winking facets of blue-white light; as some vast store of diamonds might be strewn by hands of heedless prodigality upon a dark velvet field.

Pointing, Summerlad began to recite the names of places represented by lines and groups of lights: Hollywood at their feet, the Wilshire district with Los Angeles beyond, Culver City, Pasadena away to the left, Santa Monica far to the right, Venice, Del Rey, Redondo.... "The kingdoms of the world you're come to conquer, Mrs. Lee."

"I shan't say 'Get thee behind me,'" Lucinda retorted; "I've a sensible notion you're safer where I can keep an eye on you."

It was true enough that the facile infatuation which California inspires in the uninitiate already held her senses in fee; she felt as one might who had miraculously found the way to cross the far horizon and go down into the magic realms of true romance.

But she fell asleep that night to dream of coursing a will-o'-the-wisp through a land whose painted illusion failed and faded as she fled, till in the end there was no more beauty, nor happiness nor hope, but only the bare grin of the desert savage and implacable.

She started awake with her husband's name trembling on her lips.

XXI

The room the Lontaines occupied in the Alexandria adjoined Lucinda's, and while she was lazing over breakfast and trying to find her way about in newspapers whose screaming local patriotism made one feel vaguely ashamed of having been born elsewhere, Fanny tapped on the communicating door and drifted in, en neglige, with a cigarette and an airy nonchalance oddly at war with a problematic shadow that lurked in her eyes.

"My amiable first husband," she announced, "has charged me to arrange for an audience at your convenience."

"As soon as you like," Lucinda laughed--"I mean, give me time to crawl into some clothes."

"Sure you don't mind?--and the day so immature!"

"Not a bit. In fact, I've been thinking, if we're really going through with this lunatic adventure, the less time we lose the better."

"If!" Fanny caught the word up quickly. "Does that mean you want to reconsider?"

"No, dear; merely that I've been wondering, ever since I woke up, whether the night might not have brought your husband perhaps wiser counsel."

"So much depends upon what you mean by 'wiser.' But if it's a change of heart, I'm in a position to assure you nothing like that has happened to Harry."

"I only meant--between ourselves--I can't think it quite wise of him to risk much on my chances of making good as a movie star."

Fanny achieved a ladylike snort of derision. "Never worry about what Harry risks! Besides, I won't for an instant admit there's any chance of failure, so far as you're concerned, Cindy. But I will admit I'm counting on your common-sense to hold Harry down to earth."

"How do you mean, dear?"

"Oh, it isn't that I question his grasp of business conditions and fundamentals. But he's got such an active mind, he finds it hard to let well enough alone, he's everlastingly embroidering everything he takes an interest in with the most amazing arabesques. Let him run wild, and by nightfall he'll have the motion-picture industry of the United States pooled under one Napoleonic directing head, whose identity I leave you to surmise--and all on the basis of his undertaking to shape the film destinies of Linda Lee. And he'll draw diagrams and produce figures to prove what he predicts can't fail to come true, he'll even name the date of the coming millenium in the Lontaine fortunes. So somebody's got to keep a check on the accelerator, and I'm incompetent, I don't know the first thing about business, and I'm looking to you."

"Afraid you're leaning on a broken reed, my dear."

"Don't believe it. You're so wonderfully level-headed about things, Cindy, I have implicit confidence in you. Now this morning Harry has waked up with his poor dear bean more than usually addled with gorgeous schemes, and says he wants to consult you. What he really wants is your unconditional approval of everything he has to propose. It's only fair to warn you, any other attitude will prove inacceptable in the extreme. That's what Harry calls 'talking business.' So do be wise as well as kind."

"I'll try," Lucinda promised.

Considered in the light of this semi-serious warning, all that Lontaine had to lay before her seemed almost disappointingly conservative. But perhaps he was more subtile than Fanny knew. Uncommonly grave and intent when he presented himself for the conference, in business-like fashion he went at once to the heart of things.

"I've been thinking it over all night," he assured Lucinda seriously, as she and Fanny settled to give him attention, "and it seems to me I ought to let you know more specifically what you're letting yourself in for, before I ask you to hold yourself pledged."

"That sounds suspiciously like preparation for letting me down easily."

"Please don't think that." There was a convincing glint of alarm in Lontaine's look. "Never more enthusiastic, more sure of anything than I am of your eventual success. But it's going to mean hard work for both of us, slavery for many months, and hindrances may crop up we ought to be prepared against."

"I shan't mind hard work," Lucinda replied. "In fact, I can't think of anything that I'd find more agreeable than consciousness of at least trying to do something worth while with my life. As for disappointments, I don't expect much, so I can't be very hard hit if everything doesn't turn out as happily as one might wish."

"If that spirit won't win for us, nothing will," Lontaine declared. "Now for a tentative programme.... Our first step, naturally, will be to incorporate. And since it seems to be the fashion on this side, and our corporate name will serve as a trade-mark, I venture to suggest '_Linda Lee Inc._'"

"One name is as good as another, don't you think?"

"Good. Call that settled. Then as to finances. Going on my own judgment and observation, I'm all for a small capitalization, just enough to give us working capital with a fair margin to insure against loss of time."

"I don't think I understand."

"Well, it's like this: My study of American studio conditions has satisfied me that production costs this side are normally excessive. Of course, allowance must be made for exaggeration; it seems to be a custom of the trade for the producer to multiply several times his actual outlay on a picture and broadside the result as if dollars made pictures and not brains. But I happen to know the average cost of a well-made picture today is between eighty and a hundred and twenty thousand--too much by half."

"Mr. Culp's secretary told me Alma Daley's pictures cost between a hundred and fifty and two hundred thousand each."

"If so, Ben Culp is throwing money away through ignorance or bad management or indifference. The returns are so tremendous from a really good picture, or almost any picture with a popular star, nowadays, the cinema financier can count on getting his money back and as much more in the first year of a picture's life and still have a going property, one that will bring in clear profits for a couple of years to come. So he isn't much inclined to worry about costs. Then again, in the big organizations, production costs are inflated by heavy overhead charges."

"I haven't the faintest idea what that means."

"Overhead means a proportionate charge against each production of the cost of maintaining the entire organization, including all expenses, many of which have nothing to do with the actual making of pictures. In a small organization, such as ours will be, overhead will be cut to the bone. We can make as good pictures as anybody at an average cost of not more than fifty thousand dollars; with care and ingenuity, once we get going, we'll be able to pare that down considerably. But say a picture does cost fifty thousand, its gross earnings, the first year, should be two-hundred and fifty thousand. Of that the producer gets sixty-five per cent., in round figures a hundred and sixty-five thousand. We ought to turn out not less than four pictures a year, which will mean at least four-hundred and fifty thousand clear profit to be split up between the star, the executive, and the capitalists."

"It sounds like a fairy tale."

"It _is_ a fairy tale--come true in real life. Nothing else could account for the present-day tribe of motion-picture millionaires. Some of them have a certain shrewdness, almost all have business cunning of a low order, I daresay a dogged Diogenes could run to earth one or two who are honest, but precious few of them are men of either education, taste, artistic instinct or appreciation."

"But how could such men----?"

"They had imagination enough to see cheap amusement for the masses in what most intelligent people, a dozen years ago, considered merely a mechanical curiosity. So they invested their small savings, these fur-cutters and petty tradesmen and barnstorming actors, in the venture that high finance scorned; and the boom, when it came, found them securely in the saddle. That's why the public gets so much perfunctory and stupid stuff thrown at it today."

"But our pictures aren't going to be in that class--are they?"

"Rather not! We're going to go at this thing in an intelligent way. We'll pick a good staff, select our stories with care, get the best men to write our scenarios, and gather round us a group of actors, like those who have made the Continental cinema what it is today, more interested in their work than in themselves, willing to take their chances of scoring in fine ensemble acting instead of insistent that every story shall be distorted, every scene directed, every picture cut to throw a so-called star into prominence. Even in America such sincere actors exist, and we'll find and bring them together and prove that cinema production can be an art as well as a money-grubbing scheme."

"Bravo! bravo!" Fanny interpolated. "Hark to the dear man! Now if only he'll perform one-half as bravely as he promises----!"

Lontaine flushed a little but paid no other heed. "To get back to the question of capitalization.... Arbitrarily setting fifty thousand as a fair production cost, we'll want at least a hundred and fifty thousand to begin with."

"But surely we won't need a hundred thousand margin for safety?"

"Not for safety--for economy. When we finish our first picture it will be a matter of six months at least before it can be exhibited, before, that is, it will begin to repay its cost. Meantime, we can't afford either to disband our company or hold it together in idleness. We ought to start our second picture the day after we finish the first. Thus we will waste no gestures. And allowing three months to each, we should have our second and third ready by the time the first is released. Do you follow me, Mrs. Druce?"

"I think you're quite right. You said yesterday you had some people ready to furnish the necessary capital?"

"In half an hour I can find half a dozen who'd jump at the chance," Lontaine replied without a quiver. "They don't know you, of course, Mrs. Druce, I mean they don't know Linda Lee and what she's capable of, and naturally they would be inclined to boggle at such a proposition coming from anybody but me. But they do know me, they have faith in my ideals and my practical knowledge of the business, and nothing would please them better than to see their money at work in my hands. The question is: Do we want to take them in? Is it necessary? Is it good business?"

Lucinda shook her head. "I'm sure I don't know," she said, smiling. "Please be patient with my stupidity in money matters."

"I mean to say: With profits of approximately half a million a year in sight, do we want to see the third share that would ordinarily go to capital diverted to the pockets of people who have no interest in our business except as a source of revenue?"

"Can we avoid that?"

"Simply enough, if you care to take the risk. I'll be frank with you and confess I'm not financially in a position to invest in the business myself. But if you should decide to back yourself, use your own money to finance Linda Lee Inc. you would ultimately receive two-thirds of the profits instead of the one you'd be entitled to as the star. And no outsider would have anything to say about the way we conduct our own business."

"I don't think I care about that," Lucinda observed thoughtfully. "But it does appeal to me, the idea that if I use my own money nobody but myself can suffer if we're making a mistake."

"Then--you will find the capital yourself, Mrs. Druce?"

"I think I can manage it without too much trouble."

Lontaine sighed quietly and relaxed. The contented glow of last night crept back into his eyes. He produced his cigarette-case, and began to smoke in luxurious puffs.

"Need there be any trouble?"

"I'm only wondering what Harford Willis will say." Lucinda laughed quietly. She could imagine the horror that would overspread the carven countenance of the gentleman of the old school when he learned that she meant to add the unpardonable solecism of play-acting to the heinous but after all fashionable estate of divorcee. "An old friend of my father's who looks after my estate," she explained to Lontaine's echo of the name. "He thinks I've disgraced myself as it is. When I tell him what more I mean to do, I'm sure he'll think I'm damned beyond redemption--socially, at all events."

"Need he know?"

"I'm afraid so. I don't believe I've got a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on deposit altogether. You see, most of my income is reinvested promptly as it comes in, leaving only enough to meet my usual, everyday expenses."

"Surely you can fob him off with some excuse, Mrs. Druce." Lontaine was frowning at the carpet. "Of course, you understand, I'm only thinking of your peace of mind."

"I'll think it over. But whether he likes it or not, we'll go ahead as we've planned. And as for money to get started with, I'm sure I can put something over fifty thousand at your command."

"Famous!" Lontaine's brow cleared instantly. "I may call on you for a cheque in a day or two, for preliminary expenses, a retainer for our lawyers, incorporation fees, and the like, you know."

"That brings up a question that bothers me," Lucinda confessed. "You see, my cheques will be signed Lucinda Druce, and I don't like to risk my incognita as Linda Lee. I don't want Bellamy to find out where I am--and I don't want anybody else to know but the three of us--and Mr. Summerlad, I'd almost forgotten he knew--unless I really do succeed."

"Nothing to fret about," Lontaine declared. "Simply make your cheques payable to me. I'll open an account with a local bank in my name first, and transfer it to the account of Linda Lee Inc. as soon as we incorporate."

XXII

Lucinda at about this time began to know imitations of a psychic phenomenon working within herself for which she could find no better name than that of multiple personality. She was well aware that she didn't mean by this precisely what the term would have connoted to the mind of a psychoanalyst, but it was as near as she was able to come to a description of the disconcerting performances of the several Lucindas who seemed to tenant her by turns and be forever warring for the right to rule her daily actions and form her final destiny.

Figuring her soul in the likeness of a ship at sea, her sensations much resembled those which might conceivably inform a passenger watching half a dozen captains who were continually elbowing one another aside and taking command and steering each a quite new course of individual preference; with the inevitable result that a chart of any one day's run must have closely counterfeited the trackings of a fly that had crawled out of an ink-pot upon a fair white sheet of paper.

Most puzzling circumstance of all, the one true captain seemed to be standing apart throughout and observing the antics of these upstart understudies with considerable interest, not a little wonder, and some alarm.

Certain it was that she had ceased to be the single-minded and straightforward young woman she had been accustomed to think herself, a creature moulded in an uncompromising cliche of caste and moving through life upon lines definitely laid down, thinking only the thoughts, uttering only the formulae, describing only the motions, experiencing only the sentiments and sensations considered suitable to one of her condition.

One act of mutiny had made an end to that one's reign and left an empty throne to be contested by this odd crew of usurpers, who were so many and so various, and in general so vaguely defined, that they defied cataloguing; though a few there were who by virtue of pronounced idiosyncrasy came to be recognized familiars.

There was one clear of vision, unillusioned even unto cynicism, but honourable, straight-spoken and fair-dealing, at once proud and unpretending, who was mostly in evidence in her hours of social life with the Lontaines, as distinguished from the time she spent with them in the way of business. This was Mrs. Bellamy Druce of her equivocal phase, who had ceased to be a wife and had yet to become unwedded: a woman worldly-wise and a trifle weary, but warm of heart, tolerant, and companionable.

Then there was Linda Lee, the rather excited and ambitious young thing who was all the while flying hither and yon in motor-cars, making curious acquaintances by the score, simulating an intelligent interest in affairs, legal matters, comparative merits of different studio accommodations, cost of equipment, salaries of employees, all those questions upon which Lontaine did her the honour of consulting her, knowing full well that she was fully satisfied as to his competence and incredulous of her own, and would faithfully endorse any course he might take or recommend. The first function of Miss Lee's office in the scheme was apparently that of drawing cheques. She led a busy life.... It was also anything but an uninteresting one, though Miss Lee often wondered what it was all about and how she had come to be in it and sometimes felt that she was no better than a poor impostor and doomed in due course to be disgracefully shown up.

Another was a rare, shy visitant, never viewed by mortal eyes, who held dominion only in the dead hours of these nights when Lucinda lay wakeful and lonely, feeling lost without that which for so long had seemed an essential part of life, Bel's love and the dearness of him. A pathetic spirit, prone to tears and sighs and bitter self-reproachings. But when morning came, this one had always retreated to the outermost marches of memory, where she lingered, looking back a little wistfully, a timid wraith with pleading eyes, tenuous and evanescent as the souvenir of some caress long perished.

Again one was aware of a Lucinda who, abhorring the vacuum of empty hours, committed the maddest extravagance and fairly ran amok in shops, buying right and left with a recklessness that soon made her unawares the axis of a gale of whispers; in this manner dissipating a minor fortune before her first month in Los Angeles had run out.

Lamentably there was a Lucinda who did not scruple to resort to the shabbiest shifts to compass her ends; who, for example, without one qualm of conscience wrote to Harford Willis that, having been influenced to delay proceeding to Reno, she had fallen under the spell of Southern California, thought seriously of making it her future home, and would be glad if he would turn her certain investments into ready cash against the contingency of her deciding to purchase some princely property.

Last of all the major company of these lately apprehended Lucindas was the woman emotionally malcontent, newly fallen out of love but none the less still in love with love, who with eyes now amused, now indulgent, now shocked or startled, saw herself slowly and reluctantly but surely weakening to the wooing of Lynn Summerlad.

In a way the thing seemed fated. She knew nobody else, aside from the Lontaines. She was meeting people daily, of course, but not on terms to warrant any but the most commonplace civilities: men of affairs who reasonably reckoned her a pretty nonentity and concentrated on Lontaine as the person with money to spend; now and again some minor celebrity of the cinema colony, who, if male, would find some means to let her know she wouldn't be too ill treated should she succumb, or if female, would both envy and resent her inimitable chic, and at the same time put her in a place as a mere amateur who mustn't expect too much.

When she came to look back at those days, Lucinda saw herself as one always on the go with the Lontaines and Summerlad in his spectacular motor-car: pelting headlong for some objective leagues away, Riverside for luncheon at the Mission Inn, San Diego for a week-end, Santa Barbara for the drive along the magnificent Coastal Highway, or any other of two-score remote play-grounds; going out of an evening to one of the local restaurants, Victor Hugo's for its good food and urbane service, Marcelle's for dancing and its dumbfoundering scheme of decorations, Sunset Inn for the lark of it and the people one saw, the Ship for its wild traditions, or to some lost place in the labyrinth of strange streets below South Main, to which Summerlad alone knew the way, where one might get food purely exotic in character, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese; or (and this was part of the programme of nearly every night) braving the bill-of-fare at one or another of the city theatres or their arrogant rivals, the sumptuous cinemas.

In the course of that first month Lucinda sat through more photoplays than she had ever seen before, interested even when, as all too often, they were overweeningly ambitious of intention and sorry in execution; determined to read their riddle and learn what Summerlad and Lontaine were talking about when they argued in the jargon of the studios.... But it was really the audiences that thronged these thundering temples of the silent drama that fascinated her, audiences of a texture inexplicably strange to Eastern eyes, like the street crowds from which they were drawn, so dense and constant that one was tempted to believe the people of Los Angeles never went home except to sleep.

Such torrents of motor vehicles brawled through the city channels, the only wonder was that anybody ever walked. Yet it was seldom Lucinda's fortune to view the sidewalks in the heart of town when they were not aswarm with moving masses of the most heterogeneous composition, shuffling, staring, oddly taciturn.